“My dear, you seem to be traveling alone, and——”
Lilith lifted her head with a startled look, and raised her soft brown eyes inquiringly to the face of the speaker, thereby embarrassing the good woman, who began all over again:
“You seem to be traveling all alone, my poor darling, and—and—and—you don’t seem very well. Can I do anything for you, my dear?”
“Nothing, I thank you, ma’am. I thank you very much. You are very kind to notice me,” said poor, solitary Lilith, in an unmistakably grateful tone.
“My poor darling, I should have been a brute—and worse than a brute, for brutes do have feelings—I should have been a stock or a stone, not to have noticed you and not to have felt for you, and me the mother of children of my own, too,” said the kind creature, ungrammatically, but very affectionately.
“You are very good, ma’am, and I thank you very much.”
“I wish you would let me do something for you.”
“There is nothing to do, thank you—nothing,” sighed Lilith.
“Oh, yes, there is, plenty, plenty! Now I see you so pale and weak that you are scarcely able to sit up, and if you are going to New York—— Are you going so far?”
“Yes, ma’am.”